costumes

Halloween is 11 days away! What the hell happened to September and October? Ready or not, we leave for our annual Halloween trip to Orlando in 3 days, maybe 4 if we decide to put together some extra costume props. Between costume anxiety, travel prep, a flu shot today, and a busy local Homecoming week for Landon, I feel like Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl”. So this will kind of be a Halloween free for all. My brain is like a bag of crazy cats right now. Or bag of crazy dicks. Or whatever that saying is. One of my three regular readers can let me know.

The kids and E revolted on me this year and said no makeup, they wanted “easy” costumes to wear to Disney World’s Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, which we’ll attend the night of October 29th. I don’t know what they all were bitching about because last year’s costumes were about as no fuss as you can get.

Okay, 4 hours total of makeup and 7 inch monster boots might have been a bit much. It still made the most epic Christmas card photo ever.

A few people know what we are dressing up as this year, most people don’t. I’ll post a picture on Facebook and Twitter (again on October 29th), so be on the lookout for it.

I have extreme anxiety about this year’s costumes because I have gained some weight in the past year but it is what it is. If you’re watching CNN late next week and hear about an arrest made at Walt Disney World, though, that will be me because if one little snot nosed Cheerio muncher asks “Mommy, why is (insert character name here) fat?”, I’m going to lose my shit.

I had to take my very form fitting costume into the Vietnamese tailors for a little fix last week. You may recall how that went last year. It went really well this year, meaning I didn’t get laughed at in a different language. I guess “normal” costumes give you a lot more leeway with Vietnamese tailors than star spangled rock leotards do.

Halloween in Orlando is like nothing else and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Horror Nights Orlando has been named the best Halloween event in the world the past 7 years by the people over at The Golden Ticket Awards. Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is the perfect place to go if you have younger children. It is also the only amusement park which allows costumes and that’s one of the reasons this party has become a tradition for us. Here’s a little inside look at both of this year’s events.

I was telling E and Gracie that in the second room in the HHN 25 Years Of Mayhem And Monsters House, if you enter chanting “Bear! Bear! Bear!”, the infamous HHN bear would make an appearance. Gracie thought for a moment and then said, “Like… a real bear?” This is my National Honor Society student, y’all. I told her, “Yeah, Universal got sick of crap being said about the house not being scary enough so they said ‘Oh, it isn’t scary enough? Screw you, we’ll put a live bear in there. See how you like that, suckers!’ Yes, I really said it like that because Gracie was in the room but y’all know what I really said in my head.

I hope your week is going well! I’ll leave you with “Living Dead Girl”, which also happens to be one of my most favorite Halloween songs.

We made it to the end! Well, maybe. I can’t know for sure if you’re going to read the whole post but I’ll give you the benefit of doubt. If you read till the end, there will be prizes and confetti and strippers. Okay, that’s a lie. I’m sorry.

Welcome to the last installment of This is Halloween. This series has covered each year we have spent Halloween Week in Orlando. Here’s the recap of 2013. This was the 4th year we went to Universal and Disney World for all the Halloween festivities.

The following video of Halloween Horror Nights 2013 only covers the scare zones, not the houses. And of course, I don’t expect you to watch a 10 minute video but you can fast forward through it to get a good feel of the theme for 2013. If you’re a Walking Dead fan, you’ll love it. 2013 scare zones were all Walking Dead, all the time. I don’t watch the show but I did recognize most of the iconic backdrops.

I did not go through any houses that year, something I really regret now. At the time, though, I felt like shit. I would find out the next day at the emergency clinic that I had bronchitis. Not fun.

If I had it to do over again, I would go through two houses that year – American Werewolf In London and Cabin In The Woods.

I remember as a teenager thinking that American Werewolf was the best horror movie of all time and the special effects for 1981 were mind blowing. Cabin In The Woods is my favorite modern horror movie. One of my favorite movies of all time from any genre is Army of Darkness. AoD bridged the distance between horror and comedy in a way I had never seen before. Cabin wasn’t that campy but it had just enough humor to make you almost forget it was a pretty gnarly horror movie and in that way, it reminded me a lot of AoD.

There aren’t a lot of pictures from that night, as E and Landon split off to do the houses. Gracie and I did our best to hide from the zombies on the streets and were mostly successful. I mainly spent my time feeling up Lard Lad while Gracie took pictures. That’s the kind of Mom I am.

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For Mickey’s Not So Haunted Halloween Party, we decided to tackle all new Harry Potter characters, except for Harry Potter, of course. Landon was The Chosen One himself, Gracie made an awesome Luna Lovegood and could even talk exactly like her, E was Mad-Eye Moody, and I was Bellatrix Lestrange. Again, not many pictures were taken because I had bronchitis and the antibiotics hadn’t kicked in yet. It was still a great night. E was the most popular character this time around and was stopped a few times by people asking to get a picture with him.

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Did I mention I had bronchitis? Because I did. I’m a trooper like that.

Thank you for sharing these memories with me! I will upload a picture of us in costume sometime in the late afternoon/early evening hours right here on the blog on October 30th so check back often that day. Get your finger limbered up for the refresh button. If you want to save your finger from refresh button fatigue, follow me and you’ll get an email message every time I post a blog. Or, if you prefer, I can post my blog link to your Facebook wall every hour on the hour. Your choice. Personally, I’d just hit the damn little blue “Follow” button somewhere on this page and be done with it.

We’ve had a few snags this week in the costume prep department but I think it will still all come together in spectacular fashion. Have a great weekend, y’all, and Happy Halloween Week! Be safe out there.

Halloween is 11 days away, we leave for Orlando in 5 days, and I had a pretty major costume malfunction last night. Let’s just say that a project I elected to do myself on my costume, which should have been a simple DIY, went horribly wrong. I had to take the main piece of the costume to our tailor to be fixed today.

For reference, our tailor shop consists of an older, married Vietnamese couple. We have taken many items to them, from dresses for our cruises to pants to be tailored for E and Landon. They definitely recognize me due to my hair color and I’m pretty sure they’d remember E if he went back in. They always have the shop television tuned to a Vietnamese channel. I didn’t even know those were available in Alabama. Anyway, they always talk to each other in Vietnamese, which has never bothered me until today.

I was already a little embarrassed to take the item in to be fixed. It’s kind of silly but as I was driving there, I determined that I’d be very detached about the whole thing, like it wasn’t even mine. Here’s what went down, described in the vaguest possible way so I don’t give away the costume theme, which is a surprise.

Me (placing the item on the counter and for all the embarrassment I felt, it may as well have been my own personal panties): I tried to iron these on with adhesive but they keep popping up when worn.

Man Tailor says nothing but glares at them while poking them down, somehow thinking they’ll stay for him. Valiant but useless to me at this point.

Me: Could you sew them on? So they’ll stay down when worn?

Man Tailor: You did this?

Me: Yes.

Tailor Man pokes at them a bit more angrily, then turns to his wife, Tailor Woman, says something in Vietnamese, and shows her my screw up. Tailor Man and Woman discuss my costume predicament for a minute and Tailor Woman starts laughing. Then Tailor Man starts laughing. Tailor Man starts stretching the garment and they laugh harder.

Tailor Man (putting the garment back on the counter between us and looks at it with disdain): Too much. Not worth it.

Me: Well, can it be done?

Tailor Man: Have to sew around here.

Me: Yes, I know. That’s what I want. How much will it cost?

Tailor Man: You sure?

Me: Yes.

Tailor Man (pokes at one in particular): $7.

Me: $7 each?

Tailor Man (Pokes at each one of them now, doing the math): $7, $14, $21.

Me: Okay, so $21?

Tailor Man: $20 fine. You sure?!

Me: Yes, I really need this! When can I pick it up?

Tailor Man: You sure?

Me: Yes!

Tailor Man: Tomorrow, same time.

Me: Okay, see you then.

Tailor Woman says something to Tailor Man and they both refrain from giggling but barely.

Tailor Man (holding up the garment): Is this yours?

Me: Nope. It’s my husbands.

I learned two valuable lessons today. First, laughter and mockery don’t need to be translated, people. Secondly, I will not hesitate to throw you under the bus to save face at the tailor shop. I’m not sure what that says about me but there it is. I have a feeling E will find another tailor to alter his next pair of pants.

Final installment of my Orlando Halloween series will happen maybe later tonight or maybe tomorrow or someday. It’s crazy busy and I had to get laughed at in Vietnamese today. Cut me some slack, y’all. Hope you had a great Monday!

This is usually exactly when the person I’m talking to or chatting with on Facebook says/writes “Oh, we do, too!”

No. You don’t understand the level of our Halloween craziness. Your $50 worth of 100% real juice fruit snacks for the neighborhood rug munchers (I once called toddlers that and my friend Lucinda immediately started laughing and informed me that I was using the wrong term but I’m sticking with “rug munchers”, damn it) and traditional delightful kitty cat costume isn’t really the same thing. Bless your heart.

We used to live in a gated community in Texas where lots of young families lived. Halloween was fun and festive and busy. We’d answer our door and give the little rug munchers candy (not that fruit shit, damn it, it’s Halloween, people!) for about an hour, then we’d leave the huge bowl of future diabetes and death on our porch and the Honor System would reign while we took our kids around the neighborhood for their turn at the chocolate. Or fruit snacks. Bastards.

When we moved to Alabama, we chose an older home in an older neighborhood. Newsflash: 80 year olds don’t like to trick or treat. Our first Halloween here sucked. It sucked so bad I think I would’ve taken those fruit snacks.

As the next Halloween was barreling down on us, I looked into going out of town, specifically to Disney World for their annual Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. This after hours, ticketed event happens during select nights in September and October and families are encouraged to dress up in costume.

I also discovered during that time that Universal Orlando was celebrating the 20th anniversary of Halloween Horror Nights. It is also an after hours, ticketed event held on select nights in September and October. Costumes are not allowed due to their Scare Actors, haunted houses, etc.

Our first year at Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) couldn’t have been better due to the 20th anniversary. They brought several of the marquee “bad guys” back from previous years in celebration and it was mind blowing. We had found our people.

Here are some pictures from our first HHN. We really didn’t take that many because we were so overwhelmed by the event.

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Our first Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) was also quite the event but much more family friendly. We decided it would be more fun to go in themed costumes so with the popularity of Alice In Wonderland that year, we went with it.

Landon initially refused to be the Mad Hatter so we called a family conference. I talked to Gracie beforehand and told her that we were going to offer him $20 to go as the Mad Hatter. She was all in. He rejected our $20 bribe and Gracie immediately slapped her hand on the coffee table and said “Okay, 50 bucks”! without consulting us. He agreed to the $50, E and I noted that Gracie was a really shitty negotiator and have since elected not to include her in any costume bribery.

Landon turned out to be the hit of the night. There were a few other Mad Hatters but none better than he was. He stole the show from all of us (and that wasn’t the last time he “stole” our Disney thunder but more on that in Part 2) and he enjoyed every single minute of it. Here are a few pics from that night.

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We have returned for both events ever since. This will be our fifth year of celebrating Halloween week in Orlando and we are just as excited for it as we were the first time.

This year’s costumes are a secret and there have already been a few incorrect guesses from friends on Facebook. I will reveal the costumes, with us in them, on October 30th, the night we attend the MNSSHP.

This will be our most epic year ever for costumes but before I get too far ahead of myself, I will be doing blog posts on each year we’ve attended the events and also include pictures of all our past costumes.